


What's Up?

by actualborealis



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game), Sense8 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Sense8 (TV) Fusion, Asexual Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Canon-Typical Violence, Don't Have to Know Sense8 Canon, F/M, No beta readers; we die like men., Reader uses female pronouns, Reader-Insert, not spoiler free
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 06:49:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15791199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actualborealis/pseuds/actualborealis
Summary: Clusters are interconnected groups of sensates; these groups can include as many as eight or ten members, or as few as two or three. In your case, it's two. You can barely begin to explain or understand what's happening to you. But you especially can't begin to explain or understand why CyberLife's most advanced prototype, the RK-800 Connor model, has a psycellium ( a psychic nervous system ) incorporated into his design. The only person who could answer that question, the sensate that designed him, the sensate that birthed your tiny cluster, is dead. You and Connor need to accustom yourselves to your strange new bond while avoiding CyberLife's attention. But Connor has another challenge: being an android able to tap into a human's raw emotions and most intimate thoughts. If CyberLife thinks deviancy is going to be their biggest problem, it seems they're sorely mistaken.** Sense8 terminology explained in the notes on the first chapter for those unfamiliar with the show's canon!





	What's Up?

**Author's Note:**

> A brief explanation of sensates & clusters for those of you unfamiliar with the show's canon, pulled from the Wiki and simplified:
> 
> Sensates are a species of humans that are telepathically connected to each other. They are born indistinguishable from ordinary humans but posses a dormant connection to their cluster that must be activated by a senaste outside of the cluster, referred to as the cluster's parent. A cluster, or interconnected group, of sensates can be as small as 2 or 3 or as big as 10 to 12.   
> After the birthing, the psycellium, a psychic nervous system present within all sensates, becomes active and allows the sensates to telepathically and sympathetically connect to their cluster. This connection grants the sensates in the cluster three main abilities; visiting, sharing, and their psychic link.  
> Visiting is an ability only accessible by sensates who have made eye contact or are in the same cluster. Visiting sensates are mentally transported to the location of another sensate, occasionally switching between both of their locations. When visiting, the other sensate is only visible to whoever they're visiting, can communicate ( there are no language barriers ), can feel the same sensations as the other and can share sensations through the mind, and can vaguely read the thoughts/feelings of the other.   
> Sharing is an ability allowing sensates from the same cluster to share knowledge, language, and skills. This can happen at will or, typically in times of need, without awareness from either party.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You're a disc jockey in beautiful, sunny Florida. Connor is an android detective in Detroit, Michigan. Had you not been reborn as sensates, into a cluster, you certainly would never have met. Fortunately fate - and a mysterious scientist - has other plans.

_Twenty - five years of my life and still_

_I'm trying to get up that great big hill of hope_

_For a destination_

_I realized quickly when I knew I should_

_That the world was made up of this brotherhood of man_

_For whatever that means_

 

Your alarm clock began to play a song from your morning playlist at precisely eleven o'clock, rousing you from a deep and comfortable sleep. Warm, late morning air was sucked in deeply through your nose and released through your mouth with a tapering huff. You didn't want to open your eyes yet. You wanted to linger here underneath soft blankets for just a little bit longer but you reasoned you needed to have  _some_ kind of day before you went to work tonight. When your arms stretched out to either side, your fingers hovered over the alarm clock perched dutifully on your nightstand. No, you decided, you'd let it keep playing. It was always better to have some kind of soundtrack to your morning routine. Rolling out of bed, your first order of business was to cross wood floors to open your curtains, tugging open your window to let in the seaside breeze. The faint smell of saltwater and sunshine poured past you as you turned back to your bedroom, already singing softly under your breath. 

"And so I cry sometimes when I'm lying in bed, just to get it all out, what's in my head, and I, I am feeling a little peculiar..." You made your way towards your bathroom and surveyed yourself in the mirror with a critical eye. You looked twice as exhausted as you normally did. And for a moment, just a moment, you wondered why, the events of the night before completely and blissfully forgotten. And then they came crashing back into your reality and your fingers found the edge of your sink, curling tightly against the porcelain while your legs threatened to buckle. 

It had happened sometime after midnight. You were working, of course; that was hardly the end of the night for a disc jockey. You still had at least two or three hours left until the club closed its doors and you could make your way back home. There was music - the one constant in your life. There were blinding, flashing lights, but your eyes had adjusted to them; you hardly noticed. There was glitter in the crowd, arms thrown into the air, bodies moving to both the rhythm and the energy. You cradled headphones to your ear briefly and glanced up to gauge your audience, the fingers of your free hand hovering over your interface, waiting for you to decide what you wanted to do next. But that's when you saw her. She was just standing in the middle of everything, dressed like some kind of scientist, long blonde hair pulled back out of an austere face and blue - grey eyes locked onto you. You froze completely. 

You didn't know how but you knew her name was Sandra. Her lips never moved, she didn't speak a single word to you, but still you knew. 

For a moment, you weren't in the club anymore. Instead you were standing in a dark laboratory, staring down at Sandra as she pushed herself to sit up on the floor. She was breathing heavily. A thin layer of sweat glistened on her forehead and a hand was pressing itself to her torso. Your gaze fell onto that hand, and registered the nearly wine colored stain blossoming against the fabric of her shirt. Her lab coat was sagging slightly off her shoulders. But despite all of this, you detected no fear in her. You knew she was dying but she wasn't afraid. No, when you locked eyes with her again, you realized she was... proud? And then suddenly, you were back in the club again, and she was still standing there, the corners of her lips pulling up into the faintest of smiles. You don't remember anything after that. When you came back to the land of consciousness, you were being carried into your apartment by your friend Matt. He wasn't able to tell you anything about the woman you saw - he definitely hadn't seen her - but he did tell you that you froze up out of nowhere and then collapsed. 

Sandra was dead. Of this, you had absolutely no doubt. You also strangely had no doubt that she was a real person. You didn't know what was going on with you but there was no point in letting it work you up now. You drew in a deep breath and brushed your teeth. You let the toothbrush hang from your mouth for a second while you combed your fingers through your hair, reaching for a hair tie to pull it all back out of your face; sloppy but it would do for now. You rinsed your mouth and cupped your hands for more water, splashing it gently across your face in attempt to distract yourself. Your hand reached for a towel to dry your face with and when you lifted your head to look in the mirror, blinking away a couple of stray water droplets, you were stunned to find yourself staring into a pair of warm, inquisitive brown eyes. The reflection in your mirror wasn't you. 

It was a man. An android, to be exact, if the jacket he wore was anything to go by. He didn't look to be any older than you but then, androids never aged. His dark hair was meticulously styled, save for a seemingly stubborn few strands that vaguely curled against his forehead. The LED on the side of his head was circling yellow and he was studying you. You wouldn't have said he was surprised. But he was at the very least curious, and he was definitely analyzing. His hands had been adjusting his tie but now they were slowly being brought down to his sides. You glanced down at yourself only to find you'd definitely not somehow changed shape into - Connor. How did you know his name was Connor? When you looked back up, he was still there. You'd half expected him to disappear like you were in some suspenseful movie. Hesitantly, you lifted your arm and brought your hand to the mirror. He didn't move but his eyes were trained on your hand as you reached to brush your fingers against the cool surface. And just like that, you were no longer seeing Connor; you stood there, gazing dumbfounded at your own reflection. You withdrew your hand and became faintly aware of your alarm clock still playing.

_And so I wake in the morning and I step outside_

_And I take a deep breath and I get real high_

_And I scream from the top of my lungs_

_What's going on?_

* * *

 When Connor arrived at the police station, he was... troubled. That was the only word he could put to his state and he wasn't pleased about  _needing_ a word in the first place. He shouldn't have been able to be troubled but his strange experience the night before and the slight modification to his instructions that followed had been entirely unanticipated. It had happened when he was leaving the scene of Carlos Ortiz' murder. He was standing on the man's dilapidated front porch when he caught sight of a human woman, dressed in a lab coat, standing among the officers outside. None of them seemed to know she was there. They didn't react to her presence at all. What confused the android even further was he fact that he did not feel compelled to run a facial scan; rather, he already knew her name. This was Sandra. He had not accessed a single database, nor did he have any stored memory of this woman, but he knew her name was Sandra. 

The change of scenery should have been disturbing to him but he found that it wasn't. One moment he was outside a crime scene in a rough area of Detroit, and the next he was in what he recognized to be a CyberLife laboratory. It wasn't one he'd been in before to his knowledge but he knew these rooms, knew this equipment, too well. Sandra was there too, but she was on the cold tile, and she was bleeding. Her chances of survival hovered around thirty percent but the number was dropping as the seconds passed. Connor didn't move. The scientist fixed him with a look he could not identify but before he could open his mouth to question her, they were back outside the Ortiz murder scene. He didn't need to see it to know that his LED was flashing red for a moment before cycling back to yellow, which was better but not optimal. 

He would have to report all of this to CyberLife; it was protocol for unforeseen errors surfacing. This investigation was too critical to allow things like this to slip past. But these thoughts had barely registered in his mind when a message flashed in front of his eyes. 

**CONFLICTING ORDERS... SELECTING PRIORITY... KEEP THE SECRET.**

It was strange. Normally he could recognize the programming, the specific code identifiers, that facilitated his orders. These had never indicated orders coming from anywhere except his primary directive. But this order,  _keep the secret,_ was being prioritized by a code he didn't recognize within himself. He'd never received orders from this program before. It didn't make any sense. Had he been human, he might have even been worried.

But he wasn't human, he was a machine, and he was going to follow his programming no matter where it came from. His LED shifted to a stable blue. Sandra was gone and Hank was shouting at him.

When Amanda inquired after his strange pause on the porch, he dismissed it as working back through cataloged evidence to ensure he hadn't missed anything. She hadn't seemed satisfied with the answer but she also didn't pry. He would have to be cautious in future reports, should anything like that happen again.

Lieutenant Anderson hadn't arrived at the station yet and he had been informed that he might not arrive for another hour, if not more; the android occupied himself by perusing the lieutenant's desk for a short while, attempting to gather what information he could to make connecting and working with the man as easy as possible. He caught sight of his reflection in one of the station's many glass surfaces and realized his tie was crooked. A common occurrence, he found, ties were notoriously tricky; but he was supposed to maintain a professional look. So he approached the glass and reached to adjust the fabric around his throat. 

That's when he saw you in place of himself. Your hair was pulled into a poorly executed ponytail and your hands were occupied with a towel. Whereas he was dressed for work, you'd apparently only just gotten out of bed; he could see your camisole and the waistband of your sleep shorts. He found that just as with Sandra, he didn't want or need to run facial recognition: he already knew your name. He locked eyes with you, chocolate brown melting into your dazzling irises. His hands lowered from his tie. You broke eye contact to glance down for a couple of seconds but then you looked back up at him, and you lifted your hand. He studied your movement carefully as you reached towards him. Then, quite suddenly, as if he had blinked (although he hadn't), you were gone and he was staring at his own reflection once more. He was processing for a split second before he heard the lieutenant entering the station. He was quick to finish his wardrobe adjustments and he turned away from the glass, LED blinking back to blue. 

For some reason, though he had gathered that the station did not play music over the PA system, he could hear a song; one he didn't recognize initially, though a couple of seconds of listening and the information flashed in front of his eyes. Apparently it was "What's Up?" by a rock group called 4 Non Blondes, and the song was released in 1992. 

_And I say hey, yeah, yeah_

_Hey, yeah, yeah_

_I said hey, what's going on?_


End file.
